Solve Anything! Building Ideas through Design - Mar 2010

As a Canadian who lived 6 years in the UK until a year ago I recognize this as a concern not only of and about the Canadian system but concerns increasingly raised in the UK.

In both cases their is a feeling of being disempowered - that citizens have little influence or impact. To me there seems to be a cyclical pattern ranging from apathy related to busy lives and lifestyles, to feeling disempowered with little impact and to some extent justification for inaction. People have always been more active in times of trouble when key issues bring differing parties together for common cause. At the risk of boiling things down, a reductionist approach that often criticize, I would put forward that a critical element in democratic government - I think that is the root of the discussion - is the dissemination and access to good information. This is necessary to know what is going on whether people take an interest or not. Interest is necessary for information to be meaningful and for any type of resulting action - thus engagement. So while engagement is desired and necessary, very necessary to maintain democracy that involves the use of and access to information and active use of it, thus learning, knowledge formation etc.
There are many who suggesting modern society are losing ability to learn to manage vast quantities of information in circulation, who have the time or skills to actively engage in learning and new knowledge acquisition. There are some who might argue that we fail people by not supporting and promoting such activities. That schooling increasingly depend on rote learning and that many manage information on behalf of communities to disseminate key ideas and modes of practice. This is somewhat the role of media - the news, of schools, churches, libraries and a range of professionals and professional organizations delivering key messages and lobbying for key plateforms.

How do we mange all of this - realms of information, varied opinions and key messages often conflicting points of view. It is what makes the freedom of democratic society rich with diversity and the ability to make individual choices with regard to how we conduct our lives - to chose religious affiliation or personal and private spiritual beliefs, to have choices around employment, health care, housing, and many other dimensions of our lives. I most prize the freedom of choice democracies provide and it is something I feel is under significant threat after working with fellow PhD candidates from countries that do not offer this and who can not contemplate that type of a lifestyle. It lead me to greatly consider what democratic country is about. I've gone on rather long here - hope it is somewhat useful.